How Andrew Youderian Launched a Community-Building Podcast
Andrew Youderian, founder of eCommerceFuel and a thriving entrepreneur in the e-commerce space, joins the show today. From his personal journey of leaving a traditional finance career to build an online empire, Andrew reveals the behind-the-scenes strategies that helped him succeed. He shares his experience navigating the podcasting landscape, the importance of building community, and how effective storytelling can elevate a brand.
He also highlights how the Cashflow Podcasting team played a crucial role in helping him launch and manage his podcast, and how this collaboration transformed his podcast into one that resonates with his audience. Whether you want to break into the world of online businesses or improve your existing e-commerce ventures, Andrew offers a wealth of practical advice from finding the right niche to scaling profitably, and why community building is the secret sauce to staying competitive!
Listen To The Full Episode Here:
What You’ll Learn:
Andrew’s journey in the eCommerce space.
The importance of community in eCommerce.
Why and how Andrew launched the eCommerce Fuel Podcast.
The challenges in managing a podcast.
Strategies for fostering listener engagement and loyalty.
How podcasting can contribute to brand growth and visibility.
Advice for aspiring podcasters and common pitfalls to avoid.
Ideas Worth Sharing:
“Oftentimes, great content follows passion and interest.”
“A good podcast will inform, and a great podcast will inform while [being] entertaining.”
“Our biggest value prop is bringing people together who have deep shared experiences.”
Resources:
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Pete Mockaitis: Andrew, welcome.
Andrew Youderian: Hey, thanks, Pete. Good to be on. Thanks for having me.
Pete Mockaitis: Oh, well, I am excited to be chatting with you and to learn all about eCommerceFuel and how a podcast has fit into your business journey. Could you kick us off by orient us a little bit to who are you and what is your business?
Andrew Youderian: Yeah, in a nutshell, I'm not sure what's the story you want, but got out of school, went to work in the finance world. Didn't love it. Want to start my own business so I got into e-commerce, started a few businesses in the e-commerce space. This was probably back in the late 2000s and really enjoyed it. I learned a ton and quickly realized that there was not many other people talking about this.
And I've always enjoyed bringing people together. And so I started reaching out and connecting with other independent store owners and started a community called eCommerceFuel for established seven and eight-figure e-commerce businesses. And I've been doing that primarily for the past 10 years or so.
And about probably about a year into that journey, I launched a podcast called the eCommerce Fuel Podcast that talks about how business owners create incredible businesses and amazing lives, and it's been fantastic. It's been a core driver of new members for the community. It's been a great way to get to know members in the community better. Yeah. And it's been a lot of fun. So that's the story in a nutshell.
Pete Mockaitis: Oh, that is really cool. So just for folks listening, so we're all good and clear. Now, when we say e-commerce, I am imagining someone has an online store, website and they sell physical items. Maybe they're utilizing Shopify. Maybe it's, I'm thinking about like Hostage Tape, you know, or sort of independent brands. That's a mouth tape brand for everyone who doesn't know.
Andrew Youderian: Hostage Tape. I'm thinking, when I hear Hostage Tape, I think, okay, you know, we got the people in the back. The duct tape isn't cutting it. We need the really good stuff here to keep them from squirming and screaming.
Pete Mockaitis: I think they're just trying to be dramatic about, ooh, this is–I think of that because my Shopify app always tries to sell me Hostage Tapes. You seem like you're into your sleep quality. This tape, apparently, you put it on your mouth and then it helps you [...]
Andrew Youderian: You seem like you could use some extra cash and your morals are questionable. Here, let's use some Hostage Tape. You seem like the perfect–
Pete Mockaitis: Bit different market.
Andrew Youderian: Doesn't have [...] questionable morals. That's where Hostage Tape really is focusing in on.
Pete Mockaitis: I've got a kidnapper vibe, putting out there in the digital landscape. Okay. Weird example. So someone is selling something on their website and then seven, eight figures so like a million or 10 million-ish in an annual revenue.
So that's cool. It's a small but significant business in which they've got a cool product and they're selling largely directly, maybe partnering with Amazon. Is that kind of what we should think of when you use the term e-commerce here?
Andrew Youderian: Yeah, absolutely. You hit the nail right on the head. It's independent brands, small but significant. I might steal that. It's a great way to describe it. And yeah, selling everything from Hostage Tape to, you know, to lock-picking sets as long as we're sticking with the morally questionable theme. We were talking before we hit record about podcast setups. So you were talking about sound-absorbing foam, things like that.
That'd be something that you can maybe probably buy from Amazon, but if you really want to geek out, I'm sure there's lots of independent sellers. So yes, physical items, often of the niche variety sold online.
Pete Mockaitis: Okay. That's cool. I know, but it sounds like for talking about niche, that sounds very beautiful because the people you're serving are the business owners, or maybe also the senior leaders inside these organizations.
Andrew Youderian: Yes. Generally, say 95% of the owners, but occasionally the leaders as well for some of our really larger companies.
Pete Mockaitis: Okay. And that's beautiful because as I'm imagining these folks, it's like they've have a lot of questions, and having a trusted resource platform community would probably make all the difference in the world because they don't have a buddy in town who is also an e-commerce owner, most likely.
Andrew Youderian: Oh, I mean, that's our biggest value prop is bringing people together who have deep shared experiences. Most businesses have one or two things that if you get those things right, you can screw up a lot of other areas and still probably live to fight another day. And for us, it's making sure that the people we let in our community are A, great people that are willing to be reciprocal and help others and B, have the experience and have taken, done the hard work to get to a certain point so they can share with other people.
And yeah, I mean, it's anyone who's listening that has any kind of online business, there's not that many people to talk to. We just, we're going through a big branding exercise for a big rebrand and the agency were a bunch of folks, and they found one of the biggest threads was that people just said, “Hey, this is a really lonely business doing this. There's not, you know, there's not anyone I can talk to in my area.” So yeah, spot on. That's the biggest value added is just getting to have real conversations with people who know their stuff and can be helpful that they otherwise couldn't find.
Pete Mockaitis: Lovely. So then can you orient us a little bit to what are your products or service or offerings or revenue streams? You've got a community subscription. How's it all work for us?
Andrew Youderian: Yeah. The biggest ways we add value, there's three ways. The biggest one, bar none is our online discussion community. We have a super active online forum where you can ask very detailed, in-the-weeds questions about anything and everything that only hardcore e-commerce geeks would know and only hardcore e-commerce geeks can answer.
There's few places in the world you can do that from an audience that actually gets you. So that's the biggest one and people will actually reply with information. So that's the biggest value add. We also have a review directory where, you know, one of the hardest things too is when you're deciding on hiring an agency or spending, you're signing a five-figure contract for software.
Those are big decisions, right? If you get them wrong, there's some real pain attached to that monetarily and time-wise. And so we have a directory where our members contribute reviews, no affiliate links, no pay-to-play, only just completely objective reviews. You can get a great unbiased opinion about any of those things.
And then the third thing is we do events. We have live events. So handful of times throughout the year, we'll get people together ranging from big summits for with, you know, 250, 300 people to smaller local meetups. So it's all membership-based. It's kind of a monthly membership and that's kind of the value add and how the business model works.
Pete Mockaitis: That is so cool. I mean, it sounds tremendously valuable. And in fact, you've got a really cool thing on your website. I don't think I've ever seen it before, Andrew. It says, “We guarantee you'll see a 10x ROI on your membership fee over the year. If you don't, we'll refund the whole year, and a thousand dollars for your wasted time.”
I thought that was so beautiful and bold and confident. Like if I were on the fence, I'd be like, okay, I'm in. You got me. I'm in.
Andrew Youderian: Well, thank you. We were trying to think through ‘cause I generally, for the businesses that are at the level that makes sense to qualify for the community, you know, coming in, our membership is 2,400 dollars a year, 2,500 bucks a year.
And you know, if you're doing a million dollars a year as a bare minimum, oftentimes our average member does more than three or four and we have people doing up to, you know, we have some nine-figure stores in our community. Oftentimes it's very common for people to say, “Hey, I joined and in the first month, I found a suggestion that saved me the whole membership fee in one month.”
That's just monetarily, not to mention the camaraderie, the sense of connection, and the long-term value. So, we felt pretty good about that guarantee, and yeah, thank you for mentioning that. It's always, you always wonder how it resonates with people, but it's good to hear that it stood out.
Pete Mockaitis: I don't own an e-commerce store yet, man. Give me some time. You never know where my path will take me.
Andrew Youderian: I don't know Hostage Tape, man. I mean, Hostage Tapes, I think, miss the mark on what they do. You might have an idea there. I would go that direction.
Pete Mockaitis: They don't. It's very well taken. They have, I think they would be your ideal client in terms of they're doing a lot of business selling that Hostage Tape for enhanced sleeping. Not kidnapping.
Andrew Youderian: Quote unquote enhanced sleeping.
Pete Mockaitis: So it's beautiful. Has anyone ever taken you up on that off the guarantee?
Andrew Youderian: We have had an all our time, we've had two people take us up on that. And you know, obviously, we knew we would probably have. It's not a great, you know, it's not gonna be the right fit for everybody.
And a few people sometimes come in. Oftentimes the people, at least one of the people who did come in after a year only signed in once or twice. So I'm not sure they took a–made a full effort at it. But yes, we have had to, we have made good on that two times across our membership and our lifetime.
Pete Mockaitis: That's cool as well. So kudos. So you have a beautiful thing in terms of just very clear-cut value across the board. That's really nifty. So tell us if you could go back in time pre-launching a podcast, what were you thinking was the motivation for, yeah, maybe a podcast is a smart thing to do here.
Andrew Youderian: Yeah, you know, I have a long history of audio, enjoying audio as a communication medium. As a kid I would make, I pretend to host my own radio show on it and record it and do commercials and stuff. In college, I DJ'd for the local radio station, started with like the 3:00 am graveyard shift, and slowly worked my way up to a slightly less terrible spot.
I listened to Garrison Keillor and other folks on the radio. And I always loved radio, I love voice, and it's just a way that I communicated easily. So one, I thought, hey, this is something that I enjoy doing. I feel like I've got a little experience here. Two, it was a great way I felt like to connect with people in the space for all the reasons I'm sure you've talked about on the show and why your clients have a podcast, it's a great excuse to talk to someone, to connect with someone, to build some rapport, to learn, to create content at the same time.
Yeah. And I just thought it made a lot of sense for both of those reasons. And so I thought it'd be a great lead tool for bringing people into our community and a great way to expand my network. And so that was what was in my mind when I launched the podcast back in, man, it's 2013.
Pete Mockaitis: All right. So that was the hope and it appears that you have realized these hopes. Is that accurate?
Andrew Youderian: Yeah. I mean, the podcast has been, when I look at leads to our community, the number one source of leads is word of mouth by far, probably 50%. And then I'd probably say 20 to 25%, probably a quarter of our leads come from the podcast. It's a very meaningful source of leads into the community.
And one of the things I love about podcasting that I don't think you get with any other medium is that if they're watching a YouTube video, if they're reading a blog post, if they're watching a movie, downloading a PDF, they're going to be doing that in short little bursts. Their attention span is very brief.
I'll put out a podcast and listen to it for 45 minutes, an hour and a half while I'm going for a walk, doing the dishes. The amount of distractions you have to fight in the medium, I think, are much less than other mediums, and then also the degree of intimacy you can build in rapport, you can build with people at scale with podcasting.
I think it's pretty unique. So yeah, it's been a great move not just for the leads, but also for the relationship building, the rapport building with people in a way that is not always possible with other mediums.
Pete Mockaitis: Yeah, I completely agree. That's my experience on both sides as a listener and a podcaster. That's so cool. So then, can you tell me, I suppose you had a lot of potential ways, you get a podcast out in the world. You had some experience doing your own little show as a youngster.
Andrew Youderian: Experience might be, it might be overstating it. I mean, it's about as basic as it gets. Hitting record and pots and pans in the background and sisters screaming. And my voice was about eight octaves higher than it is now. So just keep that all in mind.
Pete Mockaitis: It's a beautiful picture you're painting. Nonetheless, I guess what I'm saying is doing it yourself was an option and maybe even an interesting option. What made you think I need some help with this and Cashflow Podcasting seems like the way to go?
Andrew Youderian: Yeah, I had done enough audio work to realize that I didn't want to focus on the production side. I didn't want to focus on the editing. I wanted to focus on where my unique value add was: connecting with the guests, the e-commerce side of things, understanding how to hopefully convey the information they had to the broader audience I was trying to reach.
From a productivity standpoint and efficiency standpoint, it didn't make sense. The other thing too is I wanted to stick with it and I knew that unless I made it fairly frictionless, it was going to be very difficult to stick with it for years and years and years. So yeah, for all those reasons. I knew Ben, who was the original owner of Cashflow Podcasting and I'd met him at an event or two and just knew him through, I can't remember how we connected, but knew he was doing it and kicked it off with them and they did great and I've been with you guys ever since.
Pete Mockaitis: Beautiful. Well, thank you. We appreciate it. And I'm curious, were there any surprises as you were working through the process of getting it up and going and then keeping it going?
Andrew Youderian: I think the things that stood out to me when you first started are one, the guests really make or break the show if you're doing an interview-style show. I think guest selection is super important. And it is not easy to find people who are well-spoken, have a sense of brevity, which I think is one of the most important things on a podcast, and also have experience to share. Starting out, I invited anyone and everyone who I thought sounded remotely interesting.
I quickly realized I wanted to be a little more selective. That was one thing. I think the other thing too is just the commitment level. You need, you know, we were talking about this before we hopped on, to be powerful, this applies to any kind of content marketing, any content you put out there, but it's an insatiable beast.
You feel like you're ahead of the game and then you wake up one week and when you used to have six episodes in the bank, you know, 12 hours before your next one goes live and you got nothing. So you're just being really disciplined and the more you can come up with a formula or a framework for creating content and the more you can share what you're doing in the world versus having to come up with stuff from scratch. I think that makes it a lot more sustainable and easier to do. So those were some, a few things early on, I think, that stood out.
Pete Mockaitis: Could you share with that in terms of any hacks or format or process tips or things or tools? I mean, in many ways, Kelly, the team, we just sort of make it go once you've got the audio recorded, but prior to that, anything that you've been doing that's super helpful?
Andrew Youderian: Yeah, I think having 10 minutes of prep, or excuse me, probably 15 to 20 minutes of prep for any guest is just table stakes for, you know, even any intelligent, decent podcast. I know some people just kind of hit record and wing it as a host, but I also find trying to ask the guest either beforehand in email or in even live, just, you know, pre-recording.
“Hey, what are you most excited about right now?” Oftentimes great content follows passion and interest and you can hear it in people's voice. Sometimes it's not of interest at all or applicable at all, but sometimes it really is. And that's a great hack for getting awesome interviews. From tools, specific tools, I think having LLMs now and AI where we're recording on Riverside. To be able to record on Riverside and get done and have a transcript that is generated within about a minute and to be able to copy that into Claude and ask it questions about the interview and summarize the key points as I'm thinking about titles or key takeaways that I want to pull out or just make notes. It's such an amazing tool for being able to do that. Or even putting together summaries I want to drop into the forums. So yeah, just the era we're in with fast transcription and LLMs, AIs is pretty phenomenal for kind of the post-production process.
Pete Mockaitis: I think that's a rich point you're bringing up there in terms of, I mean, Andrew, can AI just do it all? Should you fire us because the robots can do everything we do just fine?
Andrew Youderian: Yeah, Pete, I've been meaning to have this conversation. I'm sure, I didn't think this was quite the time, but since you asked, I feel like I should probably be honest.
It's been a good run. Now, you know, I think AI is an amazing tool for summarizing. I have found it less than ideal for really good, compelling copywriting. A lot, it's still–I’m sure it'll get better. It's still at a stage that unless you're doing a lot of prompt engineering, the titles can be very formulaic. The descriptions can be very formulaic. There's a tool I have found that's called Spiral, Spiral.Computer.
Pete Mockaitis: I saw you tweeted about this. I looked at them. Yeah.
Andrew Youderian: Yeah. It is the tool I have found for actually creating on-voice and on brand AI generated titles and content descriptions because you feed it a ton of your examples. You can do this manually in an LLM like, hey, you know, hey Siri.
Pete Mockaitis: I tried ChatGPT many times. Here's a hundred titles of my podcast. Now, here's the transcript for the next podcast. Make a great title that's kind of like the others. And it's just, it's just no good. I said, give me 20 options. It's like, not a one of these can I use. And so my team does the work and they continue to demolish, in my experience. But you're saying Claude and or this new one you're talking about.
Andrew Youderian: Oh, Spiral. So I believe Spiral sits on top of probably Claude or ChatGPT, but it's secret. What it does really well is it will take your, your inputs and your outputs.
So for example, you gave it 10 titles or 20 titles and then one transcript. The way Spiral works is I'll give it and it asks for inputs and outputs and maybe 10 or 20 different pairs. So here's 10 or 20 different titles and transcripts, and then it will go through with that, you know, it has the end result and the original result for 20 different items and it will create a really really good prompt. You can then feed into ChatGPT, but you will understand some of the new or plot some of the nuances that you or I probably wouldn't necessarily notice, especially trying to analyze your own writing. Anyway, it's been probably my most effective tool from having on-brand writing.
Pete Mockaitis: Okay, cool. Good to know. Spiral is handy for that, but I guess to the broader point about AI, are we as a content production provider unnecessary in a world of AI?
Andrew Youderian: No, I don't think so. I mean, we can have the discussion again at 18 months and maybe it'll change a little bit, but I think–not to keep you up at night, but there's just a human touch that when from quality control, occasionally you put something to ChatGPT and it comes out fantastic.
Oftentimes it needs a lot of massaging. The other thing too is a lot of times people don't necessarily know what's most interesting. And I think having a human there that can filter that can be helpful. And also from a connection perspective, the day will come when Descript can talk with Twitter, can talk with Riverside, can talk with DropDox, and maybe to some degree they can a little bit with some Zaps and things like that.
But in general, there's still so much of a workflow that you, it's helpful to have humans be able to do overview, QC, everything. So anyway, long answers. No, I don't think so. I still think we're quite a ways away from that if we get there.
Pete Mockaitis: Yeah. No, you mentioned some of the tools like Descript is one of them. And you'll be using it when the time is right. We use all the tools as necessary. But yeah, it's amazing how I've gotten, I've gone deep into the Discord of the power users of Descript. And I think, oh, maybe I'm just doing something wrong. No, it's just not consistently excellent.
It just isn't. As you know, in terms of you think, oh wow, eye contact. That's amazing. So if I'm looking here over to the side, it'll bring it into the cameras, maybe, not really, but it could look super weird and embarrassing so you probably don't want to mess with it. And if you do be super careful and triple-check it afterwards, and that's kind of like the state of affairs with a lot of things, likewise, with someone like the audio cleanup features. It's like, okay, in one way, the audio’s better but in another way, I sound like a hollowed-out cyborg and so maybe that's not right. And so okay, I've got the tool, but it takes a human to say do I want to use that tool at 100% intensity, at 80%, at 72 and a half percent intensity, and then to check it afterwards. And then with the–I'm just going to rant here.
And then with the, in terms of determining what's interesting, there are these tools that will suggest, “Hey, here's some clips from it.” And I'll notice sometimes it's like, okay, I interviewed Amy Edmondson who talks about psychological safety, and she had a cool story that the AI started to grab.
I was like, “You know, you're right. That is a good story. Nice job, AI.” But then it just like cut off in the middle of it. It's like, you can't do that. I could have just imagined like people embarrass themselves when they let AI just go like lawyers to judges, “Oh, sorry judge, those weren't real cases. Oopsies.” The AI just spit it out. Or even your text or audio content. Like, I could imagine if we did have that all automated. It's just like, yep, these are your clips. People who say, who start that clip, and then say, “What the heck? You didn't even finish the story in this YouTube short, is it amateur hour over there?”
I feel like you've almost done more harm than good by diminishing your brand, your image of excellence, your trust. That's my take on AI. I mean, you got to use it with caution and plenty of adult supervision.
Andrew Youderian: Oh, I mean, I think it also speaks to how much nuance there is in human communication, right? Like subtle body language, if you're on a video, but even more even vocal, you know, the tones, the pauses, the sound quality, such subtleties that we don't think about because we've been talking since we were one year old, but it's very perceptible if you don't have a human look at it when it's off.
Pete Mockaitis: Yeah, totally. And you're right. If there's a long pause, or like a sniff, whoa, there's some emotion.
Someone's maybe near tears here and telling it like AI can't capture that text. So that's my thought in terms of it can accelerate some things, but you know, use it unbridled at your peril.
Andrew Youderian: Yeah. And actually, I have a question for you, kind of inside baseball as a long-time client, if you're trying to think through how to edit down a podcast and how do–I feel like one of the hardest things as a podcaster is the editorial side–how do you and your team edit something down when you're trying to think through what is most pertinent and interesting to the audience because you're editing podcasts for dozens if not hundreds of clients.
How do you do that when your team can't be experts necessarily in all of those things, but it's still important for the end quality? What's your process there? It's super interesting to me.
Pete Mockaitis: Sure thing. You know, I think different folks do it differently. The one I can speak to most directly is my own show, How To Be Awesome At Your Job.
And here, what we're thinking about is we've got the transcript. And so, with their, my producers are listening and reading to, over the recording. And then they are marking in red parts that they think should probably go. And then I will do a review from there and say, “Yep, I agree. All of your calls were good.”
Or, “No, actually, I know that was a little bit of a detour, but it's too hilarious to pass up. So I'm un-redding your reds.” So that's how we do it. Now, of course, the question is how do you determine what goes red and what does not? What deserves to be cut? And so the way I'm thinking about it is it's always about listener value.
And we've had surveys and conversations with listeners so we have a sense for the things that they're into and different podcasts will have different levels of tolerance for stuff. And I think about the core source of value. So for us, it's sharpening the universal skills required to flourish at work.
And then it's like, okay, well, is this content, this paragraph help doing that? And so other podcasts, they're more about companionship. “Oh, I feel like Andrew is my buddy. And it's kind of fun to hear about the fishing trip he went on. So this is cool.” So we're going to keep that in there versus others that are maybe a little bit more focused and mercenaries.
“I just need e-commerce insights. I need to 10x my business ASAP.” It's like, so if that's the vibe of the listeners, the fishing trip story goes. So it really is quite case by case. So are we talking about companionship? Are we talking about humor? Are we talking about actionable tips and wisdom? Are we talking about just sort of like having fun and distraction? Are we talking about something, “Oh, this is a novel thing I haven't heard about before.” In fact, so you and I, in this very conversation, we had some detours about Hostage Tape, and so that's the genuine decision point that we have to think through in terms of the identity of this show and who's listening.
And I'm leaning to keep, toward keeping most of it right now. But as we do a close review, we'll make that call. And you're right. And this is a thing I think the AI would be particularly terrible at is doing it. And I think it really matters. And so you're getting me fired up because let's say that the show is on the small side and it has 200 listeners. Okay, now we may very well be 100x that or 1000x that in certain places, but if you think about just respecting people and their time, if there's four minutes we've determined are not valuable times 200 listeners, 800 minutes mathematics here, like 13, 14 hours of real humans lives that are kind of at stake in terms of making the call does it stay or does it go, and not to get too self-righteous about editing podcasts, but I think it really matters in terms of the listener experience and are we–there's a song, the lyric goes, “I don't want to be a murderer,” which it's like overly dramatic ‘cause she's just talking about how I'm taking away his life by cheating on him. But I think of that when I’m editing is I don't want to be a murderer like consuming vast swaths of people's lives with stuff that is not enriching and so yeah, all that's to say, we think closely, we think hard about the audience and the value and what they're up to and whether a piece fits or does not fit.
Andrew Youderian: Yeah, it's such a good point. I feel like humor is one of the things that when I listen to podcasts, a great podcast, a good podcast will inform, a great podcast will inform while being entertaining. And that is extremely difficult to do well, which is one of the reasons why usually I will try to keep humor in, even if it is not related at all, you know, like rarely when you were making somebody laugh and this isn't just because I want my Hostage State bit to be in. It's neither here nor there, but just objectively, yeah, I'm making, trying to subtly slide this in here, but I just think like genuinely unless you go off on a 45-minute rant or a wild rant on something totally unrelated, humor is just, humor is rarely a bad, it's almost always a good addition. Unless you're at a climactic sad scene in a movie or unless you're, you know, some podcast that just is an incredibly serious tone. But usually, and even just knowing you for what, we're at 50 minutes here.
You, you value humor, right? Like, you're a fun, off wall, light-hearted guy who appreciates laughing. And I think most people, even if they're not humorous, enjoy humor. So that's one of the rare things I'll usually keep in, even if it is not quite on topic.
Pete Mockaitis: Yes, I’m with you there, and that's kind of how I feel about the matter. Now, you can think of all sorts of contexts, though, in terms of, you know, actually some of our clients do business in Haiti and have experienced kidnappings. And so Hostage Tape is not a laughing matter for these people, so we're gonna strike it. Or, actually, you know, this is really kind of corporate buttoned up, kind of brand-friendly kind of a thing. Like, that's how they're gonna roll. So we're going to have to lose the Hostage Tape bit there. And so it’s all about, okay, what is the value we're going for? And who is the audience?
Andrew Youderian: Pete, you got to fire those clients. I mean, if you've got clients like that, you just get rid of them. Just cut them loose. They're dragging you down, man.
Pete Mockaitis: We do our best to serve their individual needs. And yeah, and I think it's in a way, I think it's kind of a beautiful, again, not to get too self-righteous about podcast editing, but it's kind of a beautiful habit to just like repeatedly be thinking, is this of service?
Is this of value to some like again and again. And then, in terms of like how that applies, enters into your own life and your conversation, and how you choose to engage people. I find that I talk a lot less having been through this podcast journey. I was like, you know, that is a story that is funny to me, but I don't think it'll be funny to any of these people. So I'll just not bring it up and continue listening. And they'll probably appreciate this as a richer conversation for it. I am editing myself and other times I know, “Oh no, no, this is gold. It must be spoken.” And so I might be a little bit more forceful about getting that inserted into this conversation.
Andrew Youderian: Yeah. Absolutely. And it's one of the things like brevity. I feel like I mentioned it earlier, but brevity is such an important thing in podcasts. And when I am going through and interviewing someone, I'll always have a little notepad open on the right hand side where I have my notes, my prep notes. And it's rare in a podcast that I don't either write, take a note on the side that I put for the podcast editors that says, “Hey, this question that I asked was idiotic. It didn't lead to anything interesting. It wasn't a very good question. Scrap the whole thing.”
Or, “Hey, I asked this person what the name of their business was and they gave me a 40-minute speech about the origins of the universe. Cut it down to 30 seconds,” right? Like I'm always trying to think through that because you're absolutely right.
I think one of the best things you can do to ensure longevity and listenership that grows and is loyal is respecting their time.
Pete Mockaitis: Absolutely. Agreed. Well, yeah, we're having a lot of fun here. So let's hear about business results. Yeah. Back to results, Andrew. Business results.
Andrew Youderian: Your revenue.
Pete Mockaitis: Associated with the podcast. So you said about a quarter of folks said, “Yeah, we came in through the podcast.” I mean, that's huge right there. Wow. What are some other things that you're seeing, hearing, experiencing in terms of thinking, wow, this podcast is really an asset in the landscape of this business.
Andrew Youderian: Yeah. I think it's a great way to promote events that we have or offerings or anything we want to get your balls on–if that's not a word, but I'll use it–in our business. We do have sponsors. We have one spot, we've kind of over the years, [...] We use it also to promote our own business, but we do have a paid sponsor and have had multiple paid sponsors in the past, which has been a meaningful revenue source for us.
I think it's also just a great way, like I said earlier, to build your network. It's a great excuse. There's a lot of times people will listen to you. And like from the report perspective, multiple times I've reached out to people that I never would have guessed would have listened to the podcast and they'll get back to me.
And I don't know if they would have not gotten back to me if they hadn't listened to the podcast, but because they did listen to it and they knew who I was, they were probably exponentially more likely to respond to me favorably and positively because they felt like they knew who I was. And there was that, you know, what they felt like was a relationship or at least a sense of rapport.
So I think it opened, it opens doors for you in ways you may not expect. And you're planting seeds for future relationships with that, with your listenership in ways that can come back to really pay off tenfold in the future. You just can't see it.
Pete Mockaitis: Does any story come to mind in terms of how you've seen some podcast seeds turn into some beautiful flowering bushes and trees?
Andrew Youderian: Yeah. I mean, I just think about, I don't want to name drop, but there is, and this also will date me a little bit ‘cause I've been doing it for so long, but there's a podcast that's probably, I would guess a top 10 business podcast in 2024. And the co-host for it was someone who I exchanged an email with and listened to, and he listened to the podcast, man, probably eight years ago when he was early, really early in his career.
And for whatever reason, I can't remember how he reached out to me. I reached out to him or something happened, but he said, you know, I think he mentioned me on his show and the community on the show. And I reached out and said, “Hey, thank you.” And he said, “Yeah, man, absolutely. No problem. I've always been a fan of what you've been doing. I listened to you way back in the day when I was starting. And yeah, absolutely.” And it just blew me away because, I mean, this person has grown to be exponentially more visible in the space than I am. But because he listened to me early on, there's that sense of rapport and relationship, and didn't want to be transactional, but if I ever need to connect with him about something or talk to him or ask advice or he knows a mutual friend or something, it will be much easier to reach out and connect with him and he'll probably get back to me because of it.
There's a lot of little stories like that. And you can't always see them until you're two, three, five years down the road, but they happen.
Pete Mockaitis: That's beautiful. I'm curious. Any upcoming project or goals on the horizon that you think the podcast will be helpful for?
Andrew Youderian: Yeah. So a couple of things, I'm trying to start doing more interesting out of the box kind of things. Your team is going to get a real doozy of a podcast here in the next couple of weeks sent over to them. I live in Montana. And there is an e-commerce owner who raises bison and in the kind of the Northern Bridger mountains here where I live. Anyway, went out last week with him, interviewed him and then we went out on a bison harvest where went out, harvested a bison, processed it. Very different, but such a fascinating, incredibly humane way in which he grows high-quality meat, but such an interesting business and doing it live in the field.
Getting ready to take, do a lot of travel this year with my family, we're doing a gap year, and going to be taking–it's amazing the tech you have now, like there's the road pro set where you can take two microphones that are, you know, not a whole lot larger than the size of a Tic Tac box, and it's a pretty dang good audio.
You strap them on people. But going to be doing a lot of podcasts in Asia and in Europe, in the U.S., a little later this year in Missouri with people on the ground. So trying to do more on-the-ground things and take people along for the ride, which I think is kind of interesting.
Pete Mockaitis: So when you say my team is in for a doozy, does that mean we're going to be seeing bison guts?
Andrew Youderian: I will spare you. I'll spare you the photography. But it is like three hours of us going out in the field from beginning to end. So there'll be some editing that'll have to get done.
Pete Mockaitis: Oh, that is fun. That is fun.
Andrew Youderian: Yeah. If you want though, I can send you some blown-up life-size wall pictures. Yes. They'd make great computer wallpapers.
Pete Mockaitis: Cool. So wrap it up in our last few questions here. I'd love to get your take. So you've worked with Cashflow Podcasting for a while. What do you think is special or recommendable or not about what we've been bringing to the table for these years?
Andrew Youderian: Yeah, I mean, it's a rare thing to work with a contractor agent, third party for a decade and continue to work with them and not have the quality go down the drain, not have the pricing get shot through the roof for whatever reason, become discontent or unhappy with the relationship, and I think I've just been impressed with that.
Kelly, who is our, I'm not sure what her specific title is. She's just phenomenal. She's so communicative, so helpful. It's just at one point of contact. That's another thing that's great. I'm not talking to eight different people. I'm talking to Kelly and she takes care of everything, which is phenomenal. So yeah, I would just say, long-term consistency of quality output is what I've been impressed with.
It's a hard thing to do and few people do it ad I think that's probably the thing that I've been happiest with. I mean, all the other stuff kind of goes without saying, just the editing, the cleaning up, the sound quality, the cutting stuff down, the helping managing the flow in the future, and asking for tips.
I mean, even just before we hopped on, I was asking you a bunch of tips about sound quality and putting together a studio and lighting and those kinds of things, and you were more than happy to share that with me. So I think, yeah, but those are the things that come to mind. It's been a great relationship long term and just consistent quality, which is a rare thing these days.
Pete Mockaitis: Beautiful. Thank you. We appreciate you. And that's really great to hear. Thank you. Is there anything else that we should have covered for folks who are thinking about adding a podcast to their business? Any top tips, things we forgot to say?
Andrew Youderian: No, I think I just, I think I would say podcasting become a fairly competitive contact sport. I think in 2024, there's a ton of podcasts out there. I think my advice would be if you're going to do it, A, make sure you're ready to commit to it. B, make sure you're willing to have fun with it and you can stick with it and that you have some level of expertise coming into it.
I think the number of interview-style podcasts without guests that have deep expertise in the area, it's probably reaching a saturation point. So, I think the best podcasts are podcasts where you can have guests on, but also you're speaking from experience about something you're doing. And as someone who's run a community and doesn't have businesses anymore in the space, that's something that takes a lot more work and time on my part to try to do.
And I'm very imperfect at it, but I think those are, if you're in a space, you're doing something, you want to talk firsthand about it and share it and you have maybe potentially a unique angle to talk about it with, I think it's a great journey and investment potentially to make. And I think also having someone like you do the heavy lifting so you can focus on the content, but at least on the production side is a no-brainer. So yeah, I would strongly recommend people talk to you or someone else they know, but ideally, you guys ‘cause it just makes a world of difference.
Pete Mockaitis: Oh, thank you so much, Andrew. This has been so fun. I wish you lots and lots of success and fun and laughs and bison in the future.
Andrew Youderian: When Peter heard the bison, he's like, all right, we got to wrap this up. I had eight more questions. Let's, one more question. I love it. Thanks for having me on. And thanks for the good work over the last 10 years. It's been a pleasure partnering up with you.